


A Surprise Visit

by Anonymous



Category: X-Men (Alternate Timeline Movies)
Genre: But they'll get there eventually!, Erik and Charles are still figuring things out, Logan is ride or die for Charles, M/M, Post-X-Men: Dark Phoenix (2019), past Logan/Charles
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-11
Updated: 2021-03-11
Packaged: 2021-03-18 07:13:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,592
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29979258
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/
Summary: Post X-Men Dark Phoenix:Charles isn't quite sure that he belongs in Genosha. Logan arrives with a tempting offer.
Relationships: Erik Lehnsherr/Charles Xavier mentioned, Logan (X-Men) & Charles Xavier, Logan (X-Men)/Charles Xavier
Comments: 5
Kudos: 37
Collections: X-Men Rare Pairs 2021





	A Surprise Visit

**Author's Note:**

  * For [milosdinosaur](https://archiveofourown.org/users/milosdinosaur/gifts).
  * In response to a prompt by [milosdinosaur](https://archiveofourown.org/users/milosdinosaur/pseuds/milosdinosaur) in the [xmenrarepairs21](https://archiveofourown.org/collections/xmenrarepairs21) collection. 



> **Prompt:**
> 
> Post XMDP. The one in which Logan shows up in Genosha. Charles is thrilled. Erik less so.

It’s been almost a month since his arrival here in Genosha, and Charles doesn’t know if he’ll ever get used to it; the litany of warm sunny days rolling into endless, balmy nights. The quiet stretches are long and frequent for a guest with no purpose, doubly so when the island’s inhabitants are kept busy with their day to day tasks – farming and fishing and maintaining the commune – all physical labor quite beyond the abilities of a telepath in a wheelchair. Of course Erik tells him to rest and not to worry about ‘working’, even as he toils long hours himself, everything from digging ditches to mediating disputes and keeping the community running.

This is Erik at peace in his home as Charles has never seen him, and somehow it only makes him feel like an intruder.

The cup of tea he’s been nursing has cooled to lukewarm, largely ignored on the makeshift dining table Erik procured for his living space. He’s grateful for the relative privacy, given how little there is within the tightly knit compound, and that Erik hadn’t insisted on Charles moving in with him right away. They haven’t really talked after all, about what it means that Charles is here in Genosha, and what they are to each another beyond ex-lovers and very old friends.

It’s hard to forget – at least on Charles’ end – that it was only months ago that the two had been at odds yet again, and Erik had largely ignored his appeals until they were forced to face a common enemy.

And it’s difficult to really believe that their latest reconciliation will truly last, with so many more years spent apart than were ever spent together. 

He shakes his head, and tries to resume his reading, only for Erik to surprise him with a mental knock and an unspoken request to reach out with his telepathy.

_Yes, Erik?_

_You have a visitor. I’m bringing him to you._

Erik’s thoughts are tinged with surprise and wariness, with perhaps a touch of…jealousy? Yes, actual jealousy - something Charles hasn’t felt from Erik since perhaps in their first few months together before Cuba. It can’t be anyone from the School then - and he’s relieved, even if a part of him still aches when he thinks about Hank and the others - which could only mean one person, given the undercurrent of Erik’s thoughts about the new arrival…

Logan. Logan is _here_.

The relief is immediate and palpable, and he almost falls out of his chair in his rush to navigate out his front door and down the metal ramp. There are wheelchair accessible paths crisscrossing the shared areas of the commune – courtesy of Erik’s forward thinking, and built _before_ he even left to find Charles in Paris – giving him a measure of freedom that would otherwise be impossible in such a wild and rustic setting.

“Logan! What are you doing here?”

In all the years they’ve known each other, since that fateful visit from a possible future, Charles has never once regretted putting his faith in the strange, would-be time traveller. Logan has been many things – confidant, protector, even occasional lover – and yet somehow their relationship has endured where so many in Charles’ life have failed. And though he doesn’t love Logan the way he loves Erik, there is no one in the world he trusts more; a man who will forgive his failings, and believe that his best is enough.

He’s sporting a familiar brown leather jacket and jeans, a ratty canvas rucksack slung over his shoulder, already seeming more at home in mere minutes than Charles after so many weeks.

“I came to see you, Chuck. Went to the School and found out you’d left. Hank told me I’d find you here.”

“Oh.” His heart sinks to the pit of his stomach, wondering what Logan must think of him now, after hearing everything that’s happened with Raven and with Jean. “Well, it’s very good to see you, of course. Care to join me for a cup of tea?”

Logan grins. “I’d rather take a beer if you have it, but tea is good too.”

“I’ll just leave you two to catch up,” Erik says, expression deliberately impassive, eyes flickering between Logan and Charles and back again before he slowly turns away. “Call if you need anything,” he adds, and takes to the skies without a backwards glance, floating serenely towards the docks where the boat is still being unloaded with the island’s weekly delivery. 

Logan rolls his eyes and gives Charles’ shoulder a companionable squeeze. “Still an asshole, eh? Guess some things never change.”

Charles laughs and laughs until they make it back inside.

* * *

“So,” Charles prompts, after one beer, and then a second, and Logan filling him in on what he’s been up to for the past couple of years, “I’m ready, Logan. Let me have it.”

Looking more confused than irate, Logan asks, “What the hell are you talking about?”

Laughter, a little high and hysterical even to his own ears bursts forth as Charles shakes his head. “C’mon now, don’t go easy on me. I’m sure Hank’s filled you in on everything that’s happened. How badly I’ve messed up and all the people I hurt—”

“Hey.” Logan grabs the bottle from Charles’ hand and sets it aside, and promptly crouches in front of his chair so they’re eye to eye. “I came to make sure you’re okay, not to make you feel worse than you’re already feeling.”

“Hank must have told you what happened. With Raven. And Jean.”

“Sure he did,” Logan agrees, his words and tone surprising for the lack of heat and condemnation. “Seems to me bad decisions were made all around. I…I miss ‘em too, and it hurts like hell that they’re gone, I won’t lie. But what happened to them doesn’t fall on you alone.”

“Do you really believe that?” he asks, because they _all_ blame him in some way, a lot or a little, even if the accusations aren’t always leveled out loud. “Even knowing what I did to Jean? To her memories?”

Logan snorts. “Some memories are better forgotten; I ought ta know. Sometimes the best you can do is pick the least shitty choice out of a buffet of shitty choices. You helped Jeannie. You loved her like your own kid. She didn’t die ‘cause of what you did when she was eight years old.”

“I wish I could believe you.” He wants to shout, or cry, or shove Logan to the ground – anything, _anything_ to make the pain hurt less, and his own guilt less suffocating. “I don’t know what to do, or how to stop feeling this way! And I sure as hell don’t know why I thought coming _here_ was a good idea.”

It was a lifeline, offered with genuinely good intentions he knows, and Charles couldn’t say _‘no’_ – had no real reason to – in the face of Erik’s care and kindness towards his old friend. But this simple life is nothing at all like Charles ever imagined, so different from the hustle and bustle of the School, with hundreds of young minds to guide and to nurture.

He has no place or purpose here in Genosha, and he’s not sure if he’ll ever be able to call it _home_.

“You don’t have to stay here,” Logan says, because of course Charles is projecting, and his thoughts and feelings are spilling out of him like a leaky faucet. “You can come with me, and the two of us can go where-ever you want. Travel the world looking for mutant kids to send to Hank. Go someplace far away and start a new school. Or buy a little boat and sail around the world like a couple of handsome pirates.”

Smiling, Charles pulls Logan’s hand into his lap and gives it a light squeeze. “You’d really do that, hmm? You wouldn’t mind being stuck with a boring old professor for company?”

“Just say the word, Chuck, and I’ll break you out ta this hippy commune in a heartbeat.”

Charles hands him another beer, in lieu of an answer.

* * *

In the end, there’s only one decision he can make.

* * *

Logan only stays for three days, just long enough to catch up with Charles and wait for a definitive reply to his offer.

He doesn’t seem at all surprised, even with Charles’ reticence about life on Genosha, that he ends up leaving alone.

“You need me, anytime, anywhere, you just call,” Logan says, tossing his rucksack onto the boat that’s waiting to take him back to the mainland. “No questions. I’ll be there.”

It would be so easy – _too_ easy – even now just to change his mind and go with him, and leave everything behind. Whether they resume their physical relationship or not, he knows that the status of their bond will never change, and there’s something so appealing in that simplicity, knowing Logan would never hurt him, or leave him, or turn against him…

And yet he owes it to himself and to Erik too, to stay and try to make sense of what exists between them still, as complicated and difficult as it will undoubtedly be. Charles is hardly a young man anymore – none of them are – and he knows they won’t have many more chances to _try_ , or many more years to spend apart in the hopes of an eventual reconciliation somewhere in the future.

The future is now, and he hopes – at Erik’s side.

“Thank you, Logan. I’ll see you around.”


End file.
